Die. Respawn. Repeat.

Abstractions, I'm told, are the product of another Talent. It's a counterpart to my ability to Anchor, in a way—an Anchor changes an aspect of reality and grounds it into the world, and an Abstraction takes an aspect of reality and rips it out, giving it life and shape and presence beyond what it should have.

The problem with Abstraction? There's no way to control what's created. It's an incredibly dangerous Talent that more often than not kills the people that unlock it, in large part because they aren't usually Abstracting concepts that are safe to be around.

Part of that is the nature of the Trials. Anyone that unlocks that particular Talent is usually in the midst of combat, which rather predictably causes them to accidentally Abstract concepts of Violence, War, or Death.

Unfortunately for those Trialgoers, none of those concepts are particularly amenable to the whole idea of life.

The good news is that you can outlast an Abstraction. They don't and can't stick around forever. Eventually, they get pulled back into the fold of the universe, their presence and power fading.

The bad news is... Well, people don't generally live long enough to see that happen. More often than not, unless there's a fifth-layer practitioner around to handle them, they tear through all life in their general vicinity.

So that's fun. Third-layer practitioner or not, I've been told in no uncertain terms that the power I've gathered so far won't be enough to deal with this.

Which brings up the question of why the Interface is throwing it at me. Without Integrator interference, it's never given me challenges that are outright impossible—not unless I lead myself into them.

"We do not have time for this," the Knight reminds me.